Baerren: All-out class warfare in Lansing

Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville doesn’t have a very high regard for you. He hasn’t said so publicly, but he doesn’t appear to think that there is a whole lot that you, dear registered voter, ought to decide.

The Legislature has, the last few years, been a place where democracy goes to die. The people of Michigan rejected upgunned emergency managers, and lawmakers reacted by passing a law almost identical to the one that was repealed. Right to Work had attached to it a referendum-proof appropriation, and was rammed through in lame duck. Thanks to a redistricting process that favors the people drawing the maps, democracy in the state of Michigan is being reduced to a process by which you are entitled to vote for incumbent lawmakers but not much else.

The latest insult to self-governance comes as part of the ongoing debate over raising the minimum wage. A group of people in Michigan are circulating petitions that would put to statewide vote raising minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, and it is polling pretty well.

You might have heard the baleful warnings of jobs lost if this happens. This is always the case whenever someone talks about increasing the minimum wage. The last month and a half, the good people at the Mackinac Center have been pointing to a Congressional Budget Office analysis that said that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would cost us 500,000 jobs. Terri Lynn Land, the Republican running for Carl Levin’s open Senate seat, went even better, citing the highest, most extreme edge of job losses and announcing that it would cost a million jobs.

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It’s helpful to actually read the CBO analysis, and if you do that in this case, you find many, many lies of omission. The CBO pegs does peg 500,000 as the most likely number of jobs lost, with the predicted range between minimal jobs lost to a million. Job losses aren’t the entire story, however. The same report says that 900,000 would be lifted out of poverty, and that tens of millions of people would see higher weekly earnings.

In a breakdown of who benefits in terms of total earnings, everyone wins but one group. Raising the minimum wage, according to the same CBO report that opponents have cited, would pump tens of millions of dollars into every income bracket but that of the very highest earners.

As you might imagine, based on polling, raising the minimum wage is currently supported by a large majority of Michiganders. That probably explains why the very wealthy turned to their hired goons in suits, the people who write our laws, to sabotage it.

Richardville has introduced legislation that would increase the minimum wage to $8.15 an hour, about $30 a week for someone working full time, while at the same time invalidating the petition drive to let you decide whether to raise the minimum wage.

How many people would benefit from Richardville’s plan? Well, the same CBO report that looked at a $10.10 also looked at a $9 minimum wage. The results were pretty conclusive: There would be fewer jobs lost, and in fact it might stimulate job growth (more poor people with more money in their pockets), but fewer people raised out of poverty and lower earnings. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour does more and helps more people than a $9 minimum wage. You can expect the benefits to further drop off the further below $9 you get.

It’s a pittance, something intended to toss a bone to the working poor while protecting the bank accounts of the very wealthy. We have another term for it: Class warfare. And like with every other war, there is collateral damage. In this case, it’s your right to self-determination.

Eric Baerren is a Morning Sun columnist. He can also be found at the website Michigan Liberal and can be